fix: reduce snowplow telemetry timeout from 5s to 1s

An unreachable snowplow collector previously stalled dbt for up to 5s
(or longer if the underlying TCP stack held the connection open) at the
end of every invocation. Reduce both the POST and GET timeouts in
TimeoutEmitter to 1s so the failure is near-instant for users with no
internet access or a firewalled collector endpoint.

Closes dbt-labs#9989

Author: claygeo

.changes/unreleased/Fixes-20260329-190000.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+kind: Fixes
+body: Reduce snowplow telemetry HTTP timeout from 5s to 1s so an unreachable collector does not stall dbt at the end of every invocation
+time: 2026-03-29T19:00:00.000000-04:00
+custom:
+  Author: claygeo
+  Issue: "9989"

core/dbt/tracking.py

@@ -100,7 +100,10 @@ def http_post(self, payload):
             self.endpoint,
             data=payload,
             headers={"content-type": "application/json; charset=utf-8"},
-            timeout=5.0,
+            # Keep the timeout short so that a missing or unreachable collector
+            # does not noticeably delay the end of every dbt invocation.
+            # See https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt-core/issues/9989
+            timeout=1.0,
         )
 
         self._log_result("GET", r.status_code)
@@ -109,7 +112,14 @@ def http_post(self, payload):
     def http_get(self, payload):
         self._log_request("GET", payload)
 
-        r = requests.get(self.endpoint, params=payload, timeout=5.0)
+        r = requests.get(
+            self.endpoint,
+            params=payload,
+            # Keep the timeout short so that a missing or unreachable collector
+            # does not noticeably delay the end of every dbt invocation.
+            # See https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt-core/issues/9989
+            timeout=1.0,
+        )
 
         self._log_result("GET", r.status_code)
         return r

tests/unit/test_tracking.py

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 import datetime
 import tempfile
+from unittest.mock import MagicMock, patch
 
 import pytest
 
@@ -79,3 +80,38 @@ def test_disable_never_enabled(self, active_user_none):
     def test_initialize_from_flags(self, tempdir, send_anonymous_usage_stats):
         dbt.tracking.initialize_from_flags(send_anonymous_usage_stats, tempdir)
         assert dbt.tracking.active_user.do_not_track != send_anonymous_usage_stats
+
+
+class TestTimeoutEmitter:
+    """Verify that the TimeoutEmitter uses short timeouts so an unreachable
+    collector doesn't stall dbt at the end of every invocation.
+    See https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt-core/issues/9989
+    """
+
+    def test_http_post_uses_short_timeout(self):
+        emitter = dbt.tracking.TimeoutEmitter()
+        mock_response = MagicMock()
+        mock_response.status_code = 200
+
+        with patch("dbt.tracking.requests.post", return_value=mock_response) as mock_post:
+            emitter.http_post('{"test": "payload"}')
+            _, kwargs = mock_post.call_args
+            assert "timeout" in kwargs
+            assert kwargs["timeout"] <= 2.0, (
+                f"POST timeout {kwargs['timeout']}s is too long; keep it ≤ 2s so an unreachable "
+                "collector doesn't stall dbt at the end of every invocation."
+            )
+
+    def test_http_get_uses_short_timeout(self):
+        emitter = dbt.tracking.TimeoutEmitter()
+        mock_response = MagicMock()
+        mock_response.status_code = 200
+
+        with patch("dbt.tracking.requests.get", return_value=mock_response) as mock_get:
+            emitter.http_get({"test": "payload"})
+            _, kwargs = mock_get.call_args
+            assert "timeout" in kwargs
+            assert kwargs["timeout"] <= 2.0, (
+                f"GET timeout {kwargs['timeout']}s is too long; keep it ≤ 2s so an unreachable "
+                "collector doesn't stall dbt at the end of every invocation."
+            )